A first-time mom adjusting to her new everything

Tag Archives: sleep

Normally, Adam doesn’t do a lot in terms of routine baby care. I change 90% of diapers, and do all feedings except the 11:00pm one, which he does, and the 11:00pm diaper change, which he does. Everything else is me, or a combination of me and Adam.

Last night, karma decided it was time Adam did some real baby-caring work. So when he woke Widget up to feed him at 11, Widget did not go back to sleep. Instead, Widget cried for 2 hours straight. When I finally came down at 1am (I’m a heavy HEAVY sleeper without a baby monitor), the lights were out, Adam was wearing his gun earmuffs to block noise, and Widget was swaddled next to him, crying. Adam had tried everything, and Widget wouldn’t relax. I offered to take him, and Adam let me. Normally, he’ll complain that I never let him do anything to comfort Widget, but this time he’d been worn down to a shred of his normal self.

As soon as I pick Widget up, he stops crying. Before my feet hit the stairs to take him up to bed, he’s asleep. The stairs are 5 feet away. Adam’s response? “Really? What the hell. REALLY?”

Oh yes, karma came to visit last night, and I think I might like her more than Santa.

Well, my house is dirtier than I’d like it to be. My dog must think that nobody loves her in this house anymore, even though I do my best to play with her and talk to her everyday.

Every day is more structured than when I was at home on bed rest for the end of my pregnancy. If babies love schedules, then widget must be the happiest baby in the universe. I decided to take a cooperative approach to our days, so the schedule was shaped by his needs and tweaked to work with what I could actually accomplish. So far, it seems to be working decently enough and there’s room for flexibility and it doesn’t completely ruin his day.

But by far, the best thing to happen to me in these last 7 weeks happened last Friday night. Widget slept 5 hours straight! Before widget I needed at least 9 hours to be a decent human being so dealing with waking up every 3 hours did not result in a friendlier happy-mom version of myself. But for some reason, even though we had started to teach him to put himself to sleep and he already knew his days and nights, he just all of a sudden took to it this past weekend. I waited to get excited until I felt more confident that this change in his behavior would stick and I am happy to report that ever since Friday night he has slept at least 5 hours straight.